RedFarm

529 Hudson St. (212-792-9700)

“Your table is ready at RedFarm and will be held for five minutes,” reads the stern text message. You’ve been waiting for well over an hour for the chance to eat at what is undoubtedly New York’s trendiest farm-to-table Jewish-deli/Chinese-restaurant mash-up. You run down the street as if about to miss a flight, and enter a dining room that feels less farmhouse than economy-class cabin. The walls may be whitewashed, and the bathroom may be covered in gingham wallpaper, but there are two distinct aisles, and to get anywhere requires a cavalcade of apologies. You can’t shake the suspicion that a beverage cart will come trundling past your table.

The crowds are here because RedFarm is a Chinese restaurant like no other. There are middle-aged men, perhaps refugees from Ollie’s uptown, crowded around the bar; cool girls singing “Happy Birthday” to a friend on “the bad side of twenty-five”; cocktails made with sugar-free vodka for a lady who is “completely off sugar.” The fact that there are cocktails at all—not to mention a Yellowtail-free wine list—is unusual. The menu, made up of starters, dim sum, main courses, and noodles, is even more surprising. The best of the lot might be the kung-pao dumplings, in which a chicken dumpling is buried below peanuts and finely cubed onions and peppers. It’s an ingenious take on the go-to takeout option, a brilliantly simple invention that makes you wonder why it’s not everywhere. Other dishes are presented with uncommon sophistication, too, like the lobster dumplings, which come in a mini martini glass with an olive slice, and a filet-mignon tart, more curried than Chinese. Also not particularly Chinese are the Kumamoto oysters, served with caviar and topped with a slushie-like Meyer-lemon-and-yuzu ice. The frozen concoction is too sweet, and winds up overpowering the oyster, but this is a case of the kind of overthinking that’s bound to occur in such a playful kitchen.

“Farm-to-table” here boils down to more vegetables than you’d normally see in a Chinese restaurant, cooked to an al-dente crispness rather than steamed to oblivion. The old-school deli influence seems harder to trace, with the exception of the soon-to-be cult dish on par with Momofuku’s pork buns: a deep-fried pastrami egg roll with hot-mustard sauce, which is exactly as delicious as it sounds. On a recent evening, a manager bringing out a doggie bag recalled a “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode in which Larry reprimands his date for stealing the last of an order of dumplings (which came, incidentally, from NoHo’s Chinatown Brasserie, where RedFarm’s Joe Ng is also the executive chef). It seems safe to say that Larry would guard RedFarm’s dim sum with equal ferocity. (Open daily for dinner. Dim sum $7-$19; entrées $15-$39.) ♦